Random thoughts from a carpetbagger living in the Great Republic of Texas

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Flying on the Ground

We continue from the previous post with
more "Great Moments in Customer Service."

Several years ago, I made it a personal
policy that a trip must be more than 1000 miles before I will
consider flying. It's not that I am afraid of flying; it's just that
I have found a 1000 mile trip in a tiny car with no air conditioning,
screaming kids, bald tires and tornado warnings is just as pleasant
as a 1000 mile flight. Usually we even drive the 1200 miles to visit
my family, but I found some cheap airfare for the holidays, and we
decided to fly instead.

The travel experience went pretty well
even though we could only fly within 120 miles of our destination and
had to drive the rest of the way. The final leg of the journey home
involved a short flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to our small paradise
here in the Great Republic. As we sat on the plane and neared our
departure time, the captain came on the intercom and said, "Well
folks, we're all set to go. We're just waiting to get fueled up. I
keep calling for the fuel truck, but no one is answering the phone."

Although ensuring planes get the
necessary fuel would be considered the primary part of the job of the
fuel truck operator, I decided I would shrug off this inconvenience.
Everyone has a bad day now and then. Plus, we're already on the
plane for the last leg of the journey, not much else could go wrong.

The fuel truck eventually showed up,
and we departed maybe twenty minutes late. After a short flight, we
touched down an hour later at our home airport.

"Isn't it nice we live so close to
the airport now?" St. Pauli Girl asked. "We'll probably be
home in ten minutes."

The plane taxied from the runway then
stopped just short of the gate area. The captain's voice came over
the intercom, "Well folks, there's another plane currently at
our gate. He should be on his way shortly. We'll have to wait here
a few more minutes."

Let's review our time dictionary:

If you say: I hear:

Just a second 1 to 5 seconds

In a moment 5 to 30 seconds

In a minute 30 to 90 seconds

In a couple of minutes 1.5 to 2.5
minutes

In a few minutes 2.5 to 3.5 minutes

In five minutes 4.5 to 5.5 minutes

15 minutes Oh no

A long time I'll never hear from you again

Even if you don't totally agree with my
chart, I think we can all agree that "a few minutes" is a
lot less than "30 minutes" which is how long we waited for
that plane to move. And this is a small airport. There are only
eight gates of which only five are actually used. How hard could it
be to go to another gate?

Finally, the plane started moving to
the gate area. You could hear the entire cabin sigh in relief. The
plane maneuvered toward an empty gate 8. Then suddenly, the plane
did a complete 180 degree turn back to where we came from then
stopped again. The captain's voice came on again, "Well folks,
we're not quite there yet, we just had to move out of the way for
another plane that just landed."

I watched in awe as the other plane
pulled up to an empty gate. I could see passengers standing up,
ready to disembark. About five minutes later, our plane started
moving again. This time I could see a crew set up to guide our plane
to a gate. We finally managed to get off the plane 45 minutes after
having landed.

I went to retrieve the car while St.
Pauli Girl waited in baggage claim for our lone bag. I pulled up to
the baggage claim area only to find a long line of cars ahead of me.
They were all idle and no one seemed to be exiting the terminal.
Another twenty minutes passed with no sign of action. I tried to
call St. Pauli Girl but she didn't answer. I noticed a few people
with baggage come out of the terminal. I pulled out of the line of
cars and decided to double park by the door. When I got there I saw
St. Pauli Girl with no luggage. She reported our luggage hadn't come
off the plane yet.

Turned out that our wonderful airline
had only two people working that night. They had to load up the
plane that we had been waiting to clear the gate and handle our plane
after we parked. At the same time. I'm pretty sure those flights
had been on the schedule for a few months. I'm pretty sure a smart
cookie supervisor could have scheduled enough people or called in
someone on fear of losing his/her job or death.

We eventually got our bag and made it
home two hours after having landed. (Did I mention we live five
minutes from the airport?) But to top it all off, we paid $25 for
the expert handling of our luggage! I'm pretty sure I could have
offered anyone in the terminal $20 to go retrieve our bag from the
plane, and we'd have gotten it within five minutes.

About Me

I live in a small town in Texas. I am the real America. I wasn't born in the republic which means I'm not really Texan. I do have a pickup truck but since it's a Nissan, I'm still not considered Texan. I only drive it when no one is looking. I'm a man without a country and a man without a car. I'm an entrepreneur but not a good one as I recently had to close down the family restaurant. But that makes me an economic expert. I can seriously blame the restaurant's closing on Obama, Cheney, NAFTA, Cash for Clunkers, TARP and even Bernie Madoff who never spent millions in my restaurant. Not even a dime.